Research Projects

Researchers are working on developing a hybrid robot for elderly support, combining wheeled and legged robotic locomotion. The primary focus is on developing a compact, novel assistive social robot that can navigate through uneven terrains, carry a given payload, and balance itself in the presence of an external payload. The Hip-Hop Robot, a single-legged robot, is designed to balance on regular surfaces and hop over obstacles while maintaining stability. However, four challenges must be addressed: obtaining self-balancing of a double inverted pendulum in an under-actuated configuration, designing a closed-loop control system for hopping gait generation, facilitating switching between hopping and rolling, and instilling payload carrying capacity into the robot's design. The Hip-Hop Robot is designed in a discrete approach, focusing on the design of the inverted pendulum robot and the hopping robot separately. The controller schemes are implemented for inverted pendulum underactuated configurations. The hybrid inverted pendulum and hopping robot has the potential to combine the benefits of both wheels and legs to navigate through difficult and complex terrains. The research aims to address the challenges of balancing in confined spaces, hopping, and navigating through complex terrains.